This Week's Sky

"I have only drawn what I have seen with certainty."
—Edward Emerson Barnard (1857-1923), in 1894

"Responding to criticism that he preferred an artistic drawing to an accurate one, he replied, "I know no difference between the two."
—Richard Baum (2007) reporting the words of Nathaniel Everett Green (1823-1899)

"...every man sees after his own fashion and draws after his own fashion."
—Camille Flammarion (1842-1925), in 1897

Astronomical sketching is as old as stars on petroglyphs, and as new as Arp peculiar galaxies drawn on the web. Never static, its long practice is now in dialogue with the latest electronic-image processing; yet those who draw at the eyepiece can feel part of a chain stretching back through Messier and Herschel to Galileo. Its historical depth offers a broad array of graphic tools and techniques on which to draw, from chalk and the quill pen to modern polymers and touch screens, which can be combined in ways which are ever new. Sketching still has a role in solar and planetary data collection; and drawings of all celestial objects and phenomena provide valuable data for the study of human perception; and sketching can play a role in the serious experimental archaeology of astronomy. The eyes of no two observers are the same, their equipment differs, they handle pencils differently. Astronomical sketching allows a very personal dimension into a scientific pursuit (an aspect which made some Victorian observers very uneasy, but which we can now embrace). There is more than one scientific and attractive way to draw a lunar rill, depict an occultation, and sketch a planetary nebula or a starburst galaxy. It is a perfect way to avoid the dead-end of an astronomical monoculture. It sharpens the observer, and provides a lifelong learning experience, as does CCD work at its best. The simplest of tools can be used to start, and no equipment beyond what the observer already owns is required, be it but the naked eye. No particular talent, predilection, or gifts are needed for success, for the talent grows with the practice. There is no active RASC observer who cannot begin to sketch, and learn to sketch well.

R. Sampson, "Recording Your Observations", in T. Dickinson and A. Dyer, The Backyard Astronomer's Guide, 3rd edition, rev. and expanded (Richmond Hill: Firefly, 2008), ISBN-13: 978-1554073443, pp. 154-155: an encouraging introduction - note also that Dickinson and Dyer have used both drawings and ccd images throughout the book

Alexander Massey's instructions and video for learning the effective DSO sketching technique developed by the late Scott Mellish (1963-2011). Alex is a superb astronomical draftsman (see below), and a worthy successor to Scott. Alex can be followed at his blog

Historical note: The Mellish technique is an astronomical application of standard procedures for using dry pastels, such as the dry-wash technique. Such techniques are described in books of instruction for those learning pastel painting. Intriguingly, many of the techniques Scott skillfully applied to depicting celestial objects can be found in the 17th- and 18th-century practice of pastel painting. It is not known if he was aware of those precedents, but he deserves credit for applying them to the modern practice of astronomical sketching.

Bill Weir 2007, JRASC 101/4, 157-158: on one accomplished sketcher's path (note: the published repoductions do not do justice to the quality of his work)

Roger N. Clark, Visual Astronomy of the Deep Sky (Cambridge-Boston: Cambridge University Press & Sky Publishing, 1990)―a classic resource on how to see DSOs, and also includes sketching advice; out-of-print and now scarce. The author maintains a related website

Serge Vieillard, Nicolas Biver, Frédéric Burgeotet al., Astrodessin: observation & dessin en astronomie, 2 vols. (Toulouse: AXILONE, 2013)―the largest single work devoted to sketching at the eypiece, and the most significant manual to date of current practice. Covers solar system and DSO objects, and techniques. The work of a team of fifteen experienced French and German observers; features over 1,100 sketches

Peter Vercauteren, The Art of Deep-Sky Sketching―a very well thought-out guide to sketching DSOs at the eyepiece. It is now in its 2nd edition. There is an assoociated website, and useful videos illustrating technique. The author's gallery of sketches is a testament to his method

Photography vs. sketching

R. Bishop & D. Lane 2004, JRASC 98/2, 78-91; an important pair of articles (1 | 2), the second of which reports that "contrary to common wisdom" the most sensitive response in the dark-adapted eye (within the limit of its optical design and operational parameters) exceeds that of an astronomical CCD in 2004

http://www.asod.info/?p=969 comparison of Les Cowley's H-alpha drawings with Pete Lawrence's digital images of the same solar events on 2008 May 7. They are both excellent imagers, and the comparison repays careful study

Jeremy Perez, beyond curating the Astronomy Sketch of the Day (ASOD) site, also maintains the Belt of Venus, which features his own fine work, and offers a list of online astronomincal sketching resources. Perez was recently part of an "amateur" team who had been granted an observing run at a major professional facility, the Discovery Channel 4.27 meter telescope. He may hold the record for the use of the largest modern research telescope to execute a series of observational drawings; the full report is on his website, and a shorter version was published in Astronomy 42 5 (May 2014), 44-49. Note: ASOD has gone into a long-term hiatus as of 2015 June 16

Work of Erika Rix, a noted and experienced solar, lunar, and DSO sketcher

Work by a very good DSO sketcher Rony De Laet. Also see his The Casual Sky Observer's Guide: Stargazing with Binoculars and Small Telescopes, Astronomer's Pocket Field Guide series (New York-Dordrecht-Heidelberg-London: Springer 2012), ISBN: 978-1-4614-0594-8: a good introductory observing guide, well-illustrated with the author's fine sketches of what can actually be seen by the eye (but the information on the history of astronomy should be read with caution)

The UK magazine Astronomy Now also frequently features articles on astrosketching

ArpGalaxies―Martin Schoenball's, Uwe Glahn's, and Matthias Juchert's drawings of 100 of the visually most interesting and striking of the objects in Dr. Halton C. Arp's famous Atlas of Peculair Galaxies (1966)

superb planetary skecthes can be found in Paul Doherty's (1947-1997) Atlas of the Planets (London: Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd., 1980)―the book also includes sensible sketching advice by Sir Patrick Moore (1925-2012). Used copies can be picked-up quite inexpensively on the web

Paul G. Abel's book Visual Lunar and Planetary Astronomy, The Patrick Moore Practical Astronomy Series (New York-Heidelberg-Dordrecht-London: Springer, 2013), features planetary drawings by the author, Carlos Hernandez, and other BAA members

Professor Omar W. Nasim has recently been working on the role of astronomical sketching in 19th-century DSO observations http://irebs.academia.edu/OmarWNasim. The results of his studies have just appeared in Observing by Hand: Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014)―based on a first-hand examination of the manuscript drawings of Sir John Herschel, William Earl of Rosse, William Lassell, Ebenezer Porter Mason, Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel, and George Phillips Bond. According to the publisher "Nasim focuses on the ways in which these observers created and employed their drawings in data-driven procedures, from their choices of artistic materials and techniques to their practices and scientific observation"

Historical examples of astronomical sketching

Galileo's lunar sketches. Interesting infromation on Galileo as an artist can be extracted from a judicious reading of Horst Bredekamp, Galileo der Künstler: die Mond-die Sonne-die Hand (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007), and the collective volumes under Bredekamp's editorship: Galileo's O: Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius, ed. I. Brückle & O. Hahn, vol 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011), and Paul Needham, Galileo's O: Galileo Makes a Book, vol. 2 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2011). It has recently been shown (late June 2012) that the "New York" Sidereus Nuncius at the heart of these studies and associated books are the work of a highly sophisticated forgery operation in connection with the Girolamini book-theft ring, with the notorious Marino Massimo de Caro as a principal.Now see Nicholas Schmidle, A Very Rare Book, The New Yorker 89/41 (Dec. 16, 2013), 62. The team led by Bredekamp have accepted the findings of Nick Wilding that the book is a fake, and have released the results of their reanalysis of the fake, and its implications in Galileo's O: A Galileo Forgery―Unmasking the New York Sidereus Nuncius, ed. H. Bredekamp, I. Brückle, & P. Needham (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2014―the volume is available as an open access publication)

Michael Benson, Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time, with a forward by Owen Gingerich (New York: Abrams, 2014. Some observational sketches keeping company with diverse graphic materials illustrating "the discovery of the universe through pictures". Benson demontrates the ongoing scientific importance of graphically respresenting data, both for comprehension, and discovery. Excellent reproductions

For a good collection of digitalized versions of astronomical drawings published during the golden age of the practice, see: http://adswww.harvard.edu/ (n.b: the scans do not do justice to the originals)

Non-RASC Forums

Software

Les Cowley's excellent programme for determining the Sun's orientation, poles, equator, rotation direction, drift direction, and prominence position angles for any date, time and location

Peter Meadow'sStonyhurst disks for various heliographic latitudes of the centre of the solardisk and projected image diameters
He has also written some very useful programmes for determining the solar coordinates of features on sketches.

Supplies

Most moderate sized towns in Canada have at least several art-supply stores, or office goods suppliers. The best place to buy supplies for astronomical sketching is at the art stores attached to colleges (or universities) of art and design. They usually have the largest selection, best prices, and most knowledgeable staff. If there are no art-supply retail outlets near where you live, you could try internet suppliers. The RASC cannot endorse any commercial supplier above another, put please try to buy Canadian.

Acknowledgements

If you have suggestions for sources on sketching at the telescope (modern or historical) which you think should be considered for inclusion here please forward them to the AstroSketchers' Group chairs.